Great For A TV Movie!

This is definitely a top grade TNT made for television
movie.
If you get a chance you should try to see it! Burt Reynolds does a great
job of acting! It's about Logan (Reynolds) a police
detective trying to catch a bomber copycat murderer. I can't recall the
last time I saw Burt Reynolds in this Action genre of
film, he plays it very well, it's chocked full of great lines
and if you like action movies, with suspense and tension you should try to
catch Premonition!

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9 out of 14 people found the following review useful:

Burt Reynolds is violent, implacable and full with rage and hate in this strong and violent crime-drama movie!!!

Emotion, happiness, accuses and redemption. " Hard Time ", the newest
masterpiece directed and starring the star Burt Reynolds, brings everyone
of these emotions! this film is, without a doubt, one of the best crime-drama
films already done by Hollywood. Burt Reynolds, after his exceptional
performance in the porn-saga " Boogie Nights ", which saved his career and
took him back to the stardom, signed a contract with the TNT network to play
the main character in three films and to direct at least one of them. Well,
Burt is now directing "Hard Time" continuation, that will be called "Hard
Time 2: Premonition ", and judging by his auspicious work in the first of
the series, the executives of TNT made the right decision when letting him
direct it again!
Reynolds was never so good as he is in " Hard Time ", it is possible to see
in his eyes the happiness, the energy, his passion, maybe for noticing that
he's in charge, that he did again what he knows and that he has his
authority of consecrated star recovered to the eyes of Hollywood and of the
world now! with the hair already gray-headed, and with his famous mustache,
Burt Reynolds is the image of the experience, of the man who is capable to
demolish anything that appears in his way. The glance of Reynolds is still
strong and penetrating, expressed all his determination, his interior hate.
As his image in the poster of the film, Reynolds today is the image of a
powerful, capable man who will still give a lot what to speak...

The story of "Hard Time" is exceptional, complex, intriguing and very, very
tense. The intrigue follows "Sharky's Machine" style, a memorable film which
Reynolds directed in 1981. Burt Reynolds interprets Logan McQueen, Miami's
toughest cop, as the poster's taglines say, a fearless and full of rage
inside of himself man, who doesn't fear anything in the world, in fact, he
laughs in the presence of danger. At his side, there is Charles Duffy
(interpreted by Charles Durning, a great friend of Reynolds and excellent
actor, already nominated as best supporting actor by " The Best Little
whorehouse in Texas "), his dedicated partner. Together, the two drive by
the streets of Miami, facing dangerous latins,drug dealers and criminals of
all the types. "Hard Time" has so many action scenes, shooting and
persecution that it's impossible to enumerate them!
McQueen,clearly, has many enemies and people who would like to see him dead.
McQueen is, then, incriminated by something that he didn't commit and he is
sent to a maximum security prison. In the prison, the cops are hated and
McQueen knows that will have to do something to survive by everything and
not to be murdered inside the place, he is determined to get out of there
and to find the person (or the people) who incriminated him,and so settle
the final scores.For the murderers' and the criminal's surprise, McQueen is
worse and more dangerous than all of them together: the scenes in which Burt
Reynolds smashes the men's head who planned to curry him is too violent!
"Payback", Mel Gibson's movie, looks like Disney films, when compared with
"Hard Time", in terms of violent scenes.After executing his sentence, and
after having killed everybody that annoyed him in the place, McQueen is
loosened, and now his hate is even bigger and powerful: he will go until the
end to discover and kill each one of the men who incriminated him.The film
still has some mysteries: a suitcase full of lost money, a vain and
unfriendly black promoter who will do everything to promote homself (Billie
Dee Williams as Johnny Cochran), a seductive attorney (played by MiaSara)
and a murderer called Catarato (Paco Cristian Prieto) who represents the key
for the whole mystery...
Once the film was produced and done by TNT, it is visible its high quality:
it nor even seems a film done for television, but a film done for the
theaters, is a violent and poetic masterpiece, that has as its base an
excellent plot, actors in the peak of their talents, and a strong and
competent direction.And as he had already demonstrated in "Sharky's
Machine", Burt Reynolds uses all his talent, competence and will to command
a high level show filled with loaded-tension.
The hate glance and determination, the cynic and malicious smile, the
charming, pretty and brilliant presence: the Burt Reynolds of the
seventies,of "Sharky's Machine" , reappears, lowering, violent and better
than ever! and at this time he has more one thrilling enemy : if in
"Sharky's Machine" the antagonist was Vittorio Gassman, in "Hard Time" a
magisterial star lends his talent as villainous: Robert Loggia is Mr. Big, a
crime boss who loves flamenco dancing,a dangerous and bad man, like Joe
Pesci in "Godfellas"...
And "Hard Time 2: Premonition" is already made, and it's in post-production
phase! in this continuation, Logan McQueen will have to kill a dangerous
terrorist who is exploding Miami. And the only hope resides on a prisoner
who says he is capable to foresee the attacks ...in this film, Robert
Loggia, Mia Sara and Charles Durning continue on the cast,and Bruce Dern
enters. Once again the show is guaranteed!
Burt Reynolds is back! his charm, his presence, all his wonderful and
thrilling personality comes back to the screens of the whole world, and we
owed that to "Boogie Nights", the film that put him back to the top! and if
before we lamented and we suffered with the ostracism in which this legend
was relegated, today we have surplus reasons to commemorate his return to
the success, to the fame, to the stardom and the movies! Burt Reynolds was
never so well as he is now! and get ready: "Pups", "Stringer","Waterproof",
"Mystery, Alaska" and "The Hunter's Moon" are on their
way!!!

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Burt Reynolds is accused by the prosecutor of killing a thief

The IMDb plot summary for "Hard Time" (1998) is mostly incorrect. In
this movie, Burt Reynolds doesn't serve hard time. Not being sent to
prison, he doesn't have to escape from a maximum security prison as the
summary fantasizes.

"Hard Time" (1998) is a neo-noir. I concur with the IMDb vote of 5.6
that suggests it is at best an average or somewhat below average entry
in this genre. This doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It's not. Average is
actually "good" or "fairly good" for most movies. This movie gives Burt
Reynolds a good chance to display his skills and he runs with it. He
can project disillusionment and weariness with the best of them, from
sometimes rather simple dialog and lines. Charles Durning is an
exceptional actor. Here he plays the aging and overweight partner of
Reynolds who also was his foster parent years back. Robert Loggia has a
few scenes as a gang leader. The rest of the cast is adequate if not
exceptional, given a fairly mundane script. The directing of Reynolds
is workmanlike, and he directs himself quite well.

Reynolds is a cop who has stepped over the line a few times, so he
becomes the target of prosecutor Billy Dee Williams after an incident.
Reynolds chased a thief (Paco Christian Prieto) and his partner who had
taken $500,000 of money belonging to mobster Robert Loggia. In the heat
of the action, Prieto got a hold of Reynolds' gun and shot his partner
with it. He left the money behind, as it was handcuffed to his fellow
thief and the chase had resumed. Reynolds is blamed for this murder.
That's not his only problem, for $190,000 was missing from the
briefcase after it was recovered. Loggia makes bail for Reynolds and
pressures him for his missing money. Williams is building a case
against him. Reynolds has a lawyer, Mia Sara, but she's really
peripheral. She can't do much and doesn't. The movie unfolds what
Reynolds does to clear himself and also unravel the mystery of the
missing money.

It's not bad. I've seen it twice.

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Hard Time Indeed

I've no recollection of this playing on TV in the UK which doesn't of
course mean it didn't, I don't watch everything on every channel every
day; in fact I bought this on DVD which was marketed as a 'double'
together with Lighning, one of Ed McBain's 87th precinct stories.
Neither effort is much good and both have TV written all over them.
This is yet another cop drama and for some perverse reason it goes out
of its way NOT to say where we are, even the tags on the cars have no
state id. There are three leads who have all payed their dues without
becoming superstars, Burt Reynolds, Robert Loggia and Charles Durning.
There's nothing much to grip us plot-wise, everything has been done a
zillion times before, the best you can give it is that no one bumps
into the furniture.

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9 out of 18 people found the following review useful:

Burt Reynolds directs and stars the best thriller i've seen a long time!

Hard Time is an excellent film!It's filled with great action sequences,has a
good plot,the cast is amazing,and this film could easily be a sequence for
1981's Sharky's Machine.Burt Reynolds is one of the most talented actors i've
ever seen,and his been there presence helps to compose with surgical
precision his character,a hard,though and implacabe cop!the time has
passed,but Burt Reynolds still has that look in his eyes that makes
everybody shake!this film doesn't even look like a television movie!no,it
looks like a real movie,a cinema movie!what we see here is the kind of movie
that doesn't offer to the audience easy solutions,instead,this film is
complex and thrilling!we have that feeling that makes cinema one of the best
things of the world,we are involved by the story.Burt Reynolds made a
brilliant comeback,after Boogie Nights!i can't wait for his next
ones:Stringer,The Progenitor,and Deliverance 2!just a suggestion:wouldn't it be
nice to see Sharky's Machine 2? and how about to cast,for this film,Laura
Linney,Reese Witherspoon and Tom Selleck?
Congratulations,Burt!you're still the best!and Hard Time is the best
thriller i've seen.

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4 out of 13 people found the following review useful:

Overused Plot Business Brings No Surprises.

A common cinema sub-genre is one that may be termed Good Cop vs. The
System, wherein an ethical police officer struggles against his corrupt
supervisors while striving to remain employed, and here this not very
entertaining attempt by director and lead Burt Reynolds easily fits
into the category, utilizing nearly every cliché available from a
wealth of examples. Oft-used low level helicopter footage, of a South
Florida resort skyline backs the opening credits, as Reynolds reads,
for a voice-over, lines from a work by Bob Shacochis: his introduction
to the anthology "Florida Stories". This obviously would appear to be
an attempt to set the film near Miami, yet much of the selected
Shacochis text is ironically descriptive of Southern California as
well, and additional urban shots are culled from the Los Angeles
region, where in fact the work was, for the most part, filmed. This is
the first of a featherweight trilogy of "action" films produced for TNT
and starring Reynolds, with the "hard time" of the title, a prison
sentence served by his character, Detective Logan McQueen, transpiring
during this affair's sequel: HARD TIME: THE PREMONITION, but in this
work McQueen, sharing a holding tank with other inmates awaiting bail
or sentencing, is advised by a transvestite that it can not expect
anything less than a "hard time" from its captors. The film begins with
McQueen and his Detective partner Charlie Duffy (Charles Durning) atop
a downtown roof, deployed there as an anti-graffiti detail,
implementing binoculars to espy upon wall scribblers at play, an
assignment below contempt in the opinion of Logan, when they spot a
street robbery in progress and, after having pursued three suspects a
good distance on foot, McQueen brings two of them to bay in an alley
dead end. Here occur the events that result in McQueen being locked up,
because at the termination of the pursuit, there is a shootout during
which one of the trapped bandits is killed, to the peculiar displeasure
of the Detective's superiors. He, of course, did not kill the robber,
and the remaining portion of the picture relates of McQueen's
endeavours to clear his name despite obvious antipathy towards him by
the city's law enforcement power structure, including his own
Department, in addition to a politically motivated District Attorney's
office. Another form of jeopardy to Logan comes from large scale
narcotics trafficker Connie Martin (Robert Loggia) from whom was stolen
$190000 in the course of the alley escapade, and naturally Martin
believes that McQueen has purloined his illicitly gained monies. In the
midst of all of this, Duffy's severely overweight condition hampers
Logan in the function of his duties, even on "graffiti patrol", but
since we learn that Duffy and his wife had adopted McQueen as a
youngster, fidelity to the portly Detective has remained steadfast.
Flaws in logic and continuity are plentiful, and while a viewer will
have nearly immediate awareness that an unidentified police official is
corrupt down to the bone, a large cluster of red herrings is infused as
an attempt to remove focus from what is palpable to a viewer. Reynolds
employs a good many of his preferred personnel for the trilogy, nice
paydays indeed for them, but his relaxed and permissive directorial
style results in Johnny One Note performances from most of the cast who
simply fall back upon habitual stylistics. He himself is rather long in
the tooth and a bit connective tissue challenged to fit into his
vigorous role, but able stand-ins and post-production editing bring him
through the physical stresses of action sequences, none of which is
deftly staged. The players treat the drudging screenplay as a mere walk
through, often making heavy weather of it. Michael Buie as Higgs, a
young police officer who may have morally strayed, gains acting honours
here as he creates his part with care while remaining on topic. Too
many centres of interest are fostered by the plot, with the hub of the
affair becoming police rectitude, although depiction of police
protocol, procedures and tactics is often so bizarre as to be risible
in addition to being a discouragement to viewers who might be curious
enough to see the next two films of the HARD TIME set.